Cal shakes his head. “All I know is, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.”
“Not Dessie, so,” Mart says with finality.
Cal grins. “Well, he didn’t exactly turn out to be on the right track. Mighta been Dessie after all.”
“I’ll ask him. He can’t be sending strangers on wild-goose chases like that. He’ll give us a bad name.” Mart finds his tobacco packet and tilts it at Cal.
“Appreciate the offer, but I better get moving,” Cal says, pushing back his chair and picking up his plate. “Much obliged for the meal.”
Mart cocks an eyebrow. “Where’s the rush? Got a big date?”
“Date with YouTube,” Cal says, putting his plate in the sink. “Seeing as no one else around here is gonna help me rewire my kitchen.”
“Don’t be messing about with that YouTube; you’ll have the place burned to the ground. I told you I’ll get that washer sorted for you.” Mart points his cigarette at Cal. “And come here to me: if you don’t have a date, let you come down to Seán Óg’s tonight.”
“What’s going on?” Cal asks. “It your birthday?”
Mart laughs. “Holy God, no. I gave up them yokes years ago. Just come on down, and you’ll see what you’ll see.” He blows a thin stream of smoke between his teeth and gives Cal an extravagant wink.
Cal leaves him there, tilting his chair back and humming along to Dusty Springfield, and lets himself out. Kojak thumps his tail and rolls one eye at him as he passes. Cal walks home wondering what it was, somewhere around P.J. and his sheep and the killings, that Mart decided not to tell him.
In the end, Trey doesn’t show up till late afternoon. “Hadta do the messages,” he says by way of explanation, knocking mud off his sneakers against the doorstep.
“Well, that’s good,” Cal says. “You gotta help your mama out.” After some bewilderment at the start, he worked out that around here “the messages” is the grocery shopping. One of the reasons he picked Ireland was so he wouldn’t have to learn a new language, but sometimes he feels like the joke is on him.
Trey is wired tight today; Cal can see it, in the jut of his chin and the shift of his feet on the step. He takes a quick glance behind him, like someone might be watching, before he comes inside and shuts the door.
“I was just tidying up this thicket of mine,” Cal says, sweeping beard clippings off the table into the cardboard box he uses as a wastebasket. His beard was getting pretty unruly, and it occurred to him that if he’s going to go round asking nosy questions, it wouldn’t hurt to look respectable. “Whaddaya think?”
Trey shrugs. He fishes a packet out of his parka and hands it to Cal. Cal recognizes the wax-paper packaging: half a dozen sausages, out of Noreen’s fridge. It hits him, all of a sudden, why Trey keeps bringing him things. This is payment.
“Kid,” he says. “You don’t have to bring me stuff.”
Trey ignores this. “Fergal and Eugene,” he says. “What’d they say?”
“Were you following me?” Cal demands.
“Nah.”
“Then how’d you know I already talked to them?”
“Heard Eugene’s mam saying to Noreen, when I was getting the messages.”
“Jesus,” Cal says, heading for the fridge to put the sausages away. “A guy can’t pick his nose around here without the whole townland telling him to wash his hands.” He wonders how much longer he can keep this thing under wraps, and what the townland will think when it comes out. He finds that he has no idea, either of the answer or even of what factors might influence it. “What’d Eugene’s mama say?”
Trey follows him. “Just that you were asking for someone to do wiring. Face on her like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle. What’d they say?”
“How come? She doesn’t like the look of me?”
“ ’Cause Eugene’s too good for that. And ’cause you thought he’d need the bitta extra cash.”
“Well, I’m just a big dumb stranger that doesn’t know his way around,” Cal says. “What’d Noreen say to that?”
“Said there’s no harm in honest work, and a job would do Eugene good. She doesn’t like Mrs. Moynihan. What’d they say?”
The kid is standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, feet planted apart, blocking Cal’s way. Cal can feel him practically vibrating with tension.
“They haven’t heard from your brother since he went, neither one of them. They both think he’s alive, though.”